Ubu Roi at The Cutting Ball Theater

When Alfred Jarry’s UBU ROI premiered in Paris on December 10, 1896, the audience broke into a riot at the utterance of its first word. Jarry’s parody of Shakespeare’s Macbeth defies theatrical tradition through its scatological language and disregard for audience expectations, replacing Shakespeare’s tragic hero with a greedy, sadistic, obscene ogre who becomes the king of Poland by force and through the debasement of his people. UBU ROI retains its relevance and may bring to mind the fall from grace of many a contemporary political leader corrupted by power, from Elliot Spitzer to Dominque Strauss-Kahn.

Russian director Yury Urnov (Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company) helms this irreverent take on world leaders that ushered in a century of avant-garde drama. UBU ROI was developed as part of the 2012 edition of RISK IS THIS… The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival.